Local news crew learns first rule of media: Don't hang up on Oprah -- VIDEO

Ladies and gentlemen, we may have just found the real world’s very own Jerry Gergich.

His name – appropriately enough – is Larry Potash, and he’s been anchoring Chicago’s WGN Morning News for 18 years. In all that time, he and his team have managed to fly under the national radar… until a few days ago, when a clip of the morning news crew accidentally hanging up on a guest went viral.

Why was the gaffe such a big deal? Simple: The guest happened to be Oprah Winfrey.

The Queen of All Media was abruptly cut off in the middle of answering a question. Right away, Potash’s coworkers began accusing him of hanging up on her. (To be fair, the incident must not have actually been his fault; there’s no switchboard at the anchors’ desk.) Larry and his three fellow anchors then spent an uncomfortable few minutes riffing in disbelief about what had just happened. “We are such a pack of morons!” WGN’s Robin Baumbarten moaned. “How do we cut off the one guest we’ve had that people might be interested in watching?”

Thankfully, the story has a happy ending: Oprah eventually called back, brushing off the hang-up and joking that it had felt like being played off at an awards show. The anchors did their best to get back to business as usual – perhaps taking comfort in knowing that as soon as the clip hit the Internet, their audience would swell in size. Silver lining?